Ellie Sheedy didn’t step outside her house but her life has been tranformed by former stray Benny

For months at a time, Ellie Sheedy didn’t step outside her house. The first-year art student would watch the world from her window, sending in her work by email and ordering anything she needed online.

The 19-year-old had become terrified of going out after a severe form of hayfever left her with an unsightly rash all over her face and body.

Self-consciousness spiralled into crippling social anxiety, leaving her isolated and unable to make friends with fellow students at Loughborough University.

Three years on, Ellie, now 22, is a confident, outgoing young woman in the second year of her training as a veterinary nurse.

It was not down to medication or therapy. Instead, Ellie puts her transformation down to Benny, a six-month-old mongrel stray she adopted from the streets of Romania.

The incredible bond between Ellie and Benny is one of the highlights of an utterly enchanting four-part series, Me And My Dog: The Ultimate Contest on BBC2 — the final episode is tomorrow night at 8pm.

The series sees eight dog-and-owner pairs put through a number of challenges, examining their relationship and seeing how far a dog will follow its owner.

These include paddle boarding together, trying to get their pet to perform tricks using just eye contact and even jumping into a freezing stream to collect balls.

There are tales of redemption, broken hearts mended and incredible friendships that have made the nation fall in love with the show’s doggy stars and their owners.

It has also provided a powerful insight into the minds of dogs and how they learn to communicate with us — turning on its head our preconceptions about the special relationship that Man and dog have enjoyed for more than 15,000 years.

Antonia and her pooch Flapjack out together on a bike ride in the countryside

In fact, we’re on a much more equal footing than anyone had ever thought.

While just one canine will be crowned Top Dog, the series showed how dogs and humans can learn to communicate almost telepathically — and the bond can be as close as any human relationship.

Ellie, who lives in Ashton-in-Makerfield near Wigan, puts her incredible bond with Benny down to the fact that they’d both been through some incredibly hard times.

‘Benny and I came back into the world together,’ she says. ‘He helped me as much as I helped him, because we were as broken as each other.

‘He’d been so traumatised by his experiences that he would hide under the table or shake with fear most of the time. Caring for him forced me to leave the house because I knew he needed socialising with other dogs and plenty of walks to bring him back.

‘I had to stop focusing on myself and thinking people were staring at me when I went out because I needed to be strong for him. I saved him from the shelter, but he saved me in so many other ways.

Antonia and Flapjack enjoying being out for a run with fellow pair Mitch and Colin

‘I gave him lots of support and we started to understand each other better. Soon, I could read his expressions — and he could read mine.

‘If I felt anxious, he’d sit on my lap and give me a little tilt of the head or a nudge with his nose and I’d focus on him again and forget my worries.’

Happily for Ellie, thanks to a pioneering course of jabs, her allergies eventually cleared up. But rather than return to university, she decided to retrain as a veterinary nurse to help others like Benny.

The reason Benny was so traumatised was because of his cruel treatment in Romania, a country that has a huge problem with stray dogs.

It stems from the Ceausescu dictatorship of the Eighties, which forced people to move from the countryside into small apartment blocks. It meant that thousands of pet dogs were abandoned.

Today, their descendants are still living on the streets and are often so mistreated that UK charities such as Action Aid For Animals travel to the country regularly to save as many from inhumane dog pounds as possible.

‘Over there, dogs are seen as vermin,’ says Ellie. ‘Benny was found in a shelter that looked like a football pitch with a fence around it. Food would be thrown in and the dogs would fight for it.’

Andrew and Betty are another pair to feature on Me And My Dog: The Ultimate Contest, which airs on BBC2 on Wednesday

The charity placed Benny with a foster family in the UK — and when Ellie saw his picture online, she knew that they were meant to be together.

On TV, their deep bond was demonstrated by a test of their communication skills. During filming in the Lake District, the dogs were asked to navigate a range of gates guided only by their owners’ eyes and body language.

However, while the little mongrel bravely had a go at standing on a paddle board during a race around a lake, he drew the line at following Ellie through a mud bath, opting to meet her on the other side instead.

‘He knows me so well. He knew I didn’t love being in the sticky mud, so he didn’t want to do it either,’ says Ellie.

Then there is Jake Ahmad, 38, a painter and decorator from Winchester, Hants. Fans of the show were reduced to tears when it was revealed how his beloved labradoodle, Monty, never lived to see the show televised.

Though he looked fit and well during filming, he died at the end of January from cancer of the spleen.

Fans of the show were reduced to tears when it was revealed how Jake Ahmad's beloved labradoodle, Monty, never lived to see the show televised

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Like Ellie, Jake said Monty brought him through some tough times following the suicide of his girlfriend. ‘Monty spent almost ten years helping me get back on my feet.

‘He helped save my life. When I got his ashes, I put them on the sofa for a day because Monty was never allowed up there when he was alive.

‘Looking back, I am just so grateful to have had him in my life. He was the most fun dog. He taught himself to ski by flipping his frisbee over, putting his two front paws inside and sliding along on it. He was such a dude.’

There are heart-in-the- mouth moments, too, when you realise just how raw dogs’ emotions can be. Josh Rice, 27, a project manager from Honiton, Devon, is shown looking almost tearful when he sees the terror in his dog Douglas’s eyes during a lake swimming challenge.

Josh Rice, 27, a project manager from Honiton, Devon, is shown looking almost tearful when he sees the terror in his dog Douglas’s eyes during a lake swimming challenge

Dogs are great confidence boosters, too, and can provide solace in the most awkward of circumstances.

Jenni Routley, a 36-year-old web designer from Skipton, North Yorks, was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome in her mid-20s. The companionship of her two-year-old collie-cocker-spaniel cross, Bodger, that helps keep her condition in check. He curbs the anxiety that causes her involuntary tics — in her case, often noises such as whistling.

Jenni says: ‘People don’t dwell on my condition when I’m with Bodger — they are much more interested in stroking and fussing over her.’

How to speak your dog's language

Look at his paws

Dogs can be right- or left-pawed, like humans. They tend to have one dominant side that they use to step forward first — or help them perform tasks, like holding down a bone so they can get the meat off it.

Knowing if your pet is right- or left-pawed can also give insights into their personalities.

In experiments, left-pawed dogs — around 30 per cent — were found to be more sensitive to noise, and possibly more anxious around sounds such as fireworks, or excitable when the doorbell rings. Dog behaviour expert Sian Ryan says: ‘It’s an inborn trait which can help you understand your dog better.’

Don't bark orders, use eye contact

Non-verbal gestures, such as pointing and eye contact, work three times better than verbal commands. Dogs are one of the only species to make eye contact with people. In canines and humans, tests found this connection releases the feel-good bonding hormone oxytocin. But prolonged eye contact can be threatening and provoke aggressive behaviour in some dogs.

And even though dogs do not have good close-vision, they are still excellent at using their sight to work out how we feel.

Research has found humans display emotion on the right side of the face first — and that’s where dogs look first.

Don’t fall for sad eyes

Even though social media is filled with pictures of dogs looking ashamed of themselves after being naughty, they are not as contrite as they look, says Sian. They are responding to angry body language and tone of voice. Sian says: ‘If your dog does something you don’t like, there’s no point getting cross — they don’t associate their behaviour with your anger.

‘They act in a submissive way because they are trying to send the message: “Don’t hurt me!” If you catch your dog doing something wrong, distract them.

‘If you shout and get angry, you just become unpredictable and scary to a dog and you risk him losing his trust in you.’

Read body language

Dogs constantly ‘read’ their owners by monitoring their every movement, says Sian.

But we can learn a lot from their body language. ‘If they lick their lips, it can be a subtle sign that they are uncomfortable.’

Even the way a tail wags can be a clue to how they are feeling, adds Sian. A wag to the right, for example, shows they are happy, because that refers to the left side of brain, which processes positive emotion.

Look at his ears

Another way to read a dog’s feelings is to pay close attention to his ears. If they point forward and are pricked up, it means they feel alert and confident.

Generally, if they are flattened, they feel fearful — though some breeds can’t flatten their ears.

If their ears keep changing position, the dog is likely to be unsure of the situation.

However Sian says you should also read the rest of the dog’s body language: ‘If they are flattened due to stress, there will also be other signs, like a tail tucked between the legs, an averted gaze or the dog’s head turning away.’

Tickle don’t cuddle

Don’t assume dogs always want to cuddled tightly. ‘Hugs are often something they tolerate rather than love, because they share our homes.

‘Unlike dogs, humans are basically apes who use their hands: a cuddle is not a natural thing for many dogs to receive.

‘They tend to appreciate a rub under the ears more, because this is where dogs would naturally nibble and groom each other.

‘And they also appreciate a tickle under the chin more than a pat on the head which can feel like a dominant, threatening gesture.’